>
>Well, a number of us have discussed Terry Eagleton's *Reason, Faith, and
>Revolution * at Left Forum and on Facebook.
did they read it, or just discuss it?
>As you were the first of us to tackle Michael Parenti's *God and His Demons*
eeek. tackle makes it seem like the book was a challenge. NOT! it's pretty lightweight.
>(rather like a heroic soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his
>squad),
*snort* lol
>I'm sure we'd be
>interested in hearing your thoughts on Eagleton as well.
i don't know if i can stomach eagleton. i read his stuff on the pomos and what i saw in that piece was a vicious nastiness and deliberate twisting of words and selective use of quotes. i don't trust him. when someone does that much damage to stuff I do know, I totally can't stand to read them on stuff about which I might know less.
btw, i got busy and never followed up. I really didn't care for parenti's book, style wise. it is way too shallow a treatment of the topic. in a book that is smaller than the typical book - w X l dimensions that is - his chapters were 5-10 pp long. You can't really do justice to the topics in that length.
I had mentioned that, if you already know the basic leftist critique of the religious right, it's a yawn.
so, it's a book written for someone first learning about a left critique of religion.
it's also an entry into the field in so far as his prescription. he says that we have to come up with a way to recognize that some people will believe in god and others won't or won't know. we shouldn't hope for some world where no one ever believes again. not only is that probably impossible, but it doesn't make sense since it would be undermining our own commitment to secularism
>I've read *First as Tragedy, Then as Farce*. Highly recommended, of course;
>is there anything in particular about it I should say?
nope. that's all. you only had to say you like Charlotte Simmons and I read that! When I get a chance, I will write more about Max Havelaar too. Pretty great book. Unlike Michael, my favorite parts were with the coffee broker as author. Hilarious parody.
shag